Geological researches in China, Mongolia, and Japan, during the years 1862-1865.

2 GEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN
of Eastern Asia, let us look for it in China also, where we have to rely on a more
limited number of data, partly geological and partly topographical in their character.
Where the Yangtse river crosses the Sz'chuen-Hupeh frontier, it cuts through a
broad mountain range whose principal axis crosses the river in long. 1110 15', near
Ichang (fu). Here the axial granite rises 600 to 1000 feet above the river, and
is flanked on both sides by an immense thickness of limestone and coal-bearing
rocks, whose strata have here a mean trend to N. E. If, through this point, we
draw a line (C, D, P1. VII) having a similar trend, its prolongation will indicate
the watershed between the Hwai river and the Han river, the watershed of Shantung, and following the line of islands that stretch across the entrance to the Gulf
of Pechele, it will coincide with the range of mountains, which, beginning with the
promontory of Liautung, divides the waters first of the Liau river and Yaluh river,
and afterwards, of the Sungari river and Usuri river. If we prolong the line from
the Yangtse to the S. W., it will nearly coincide with the mountains that part the
rivers of Kweichau from those of Hunan.
All these ridges I take to be members of a continuous line of elevation, extending
from Southern China to the Amur river, and which, from its influence on the
character of the country, may be called the central anticlinal axis of China.
A line drawn from near Canton and passing through the Chusan archipelago,
will represent the mean trend of the coast range, and, if prolonged to the N. E., it
will cut the Corean peninsula near its southern end, in what -appears to be its most
mountainous point.1 In the other direction, the island of Hainan, from its N. E.
S. W. trend and lofty mountains, would seem to be a member of the same range.
In Northwestern China, a great range crosses the Yellow river, in its course
between Shansi and Shensi, and trending N. E. by E., connects the mountain
knot of Northwestern Sz'chuen with that of the Ourang daban north of the
Tushikau gate of the Great Wall. Nearly parallel to this is another range which,
beginning west of Singan (fu), crosses the Yellow river, forming the Lungmun
gorge, and traversing, obliquely, the centre of Shansi, gradually approaches the
other range in northern Chihli.
These are the three principal axes, and they seem to be made up of parallel
anticlinal ridges. Minor parallel axes seem to occupy the country between these
larger ranges.
If we examine the maps of the provinces that border on the eastern edge of the
Tibetan highland, we find a system of ranges, which, branching off from the
Kwenlun and following, at first, a southeasterly course, gradually merge into a N.
S. trend. The easternmost of these, occupying western Sz'chuen, divide the
principal northern tributaries of the Yangtse. Those farther west form the narrow
watersheds between the upper courses of the Yangtse, the Cambodia and the
Salween, and, in their southern prolongation, they form the Malayan peninsula and
probably that occupied by Annam and Siam. The N. S. trend seems to be confined exclusively to the extreme west of China.
According to the great map of Kanghi this peninsula seems to have its principal mountains in
the south, forming a N. E. S. W. ridge.